Prayers
by GGElaina
Summary: A high class princess and redneck boys worlds collide when the world is over run by flesh eating zombies. Two sheltered souls must put their complete trust and faith in strangers to stay alive as they find a way to survive the new world they live in.
1. First Encounter

**Prologue: First Encounter**

(**Please note that this is an Alternate Universe. It does not strictly follow the Comic Book, Television Series or the Video Games in terms of canon character story line or time line. There will be factors taken from all three universes such as characters as scenarios.)**

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_Ashley,_

_I have gone to Athens to see my brother. I told you he was attacked by a sick dog last week. He isn't doing very well. I don't expect to be gone very long. Please remember to feed the cats every day and let the dogs in from the porch. There are dinners already prepared in the refrigerator. Here's my brothers home phone if you can't reach my cell phone._

_Esta_

Ashley crumpled the paper up bitterly as she stumbled across the kitchen tiles. Her maid, Esta, was a middle aged woman who had been in her family since her mother passed away. Her mother had always been the stay at home type; doing the cooking and the cleaning like they still lived in the 1920's. Ashley and her father would have starved or died the weight of their own garbage if not for Esta. But since her fathers death she felt like the maid had become more of a problem than a help. With the economy slowly sinking, fewer and fewer people could hire in house help and Esta had two children at college. Maybe Esta missed having a small child to take care of but it felt as though she didn't understand that Ashley was no longer a child.

Ashley was turning 27 in May and was less than 4 months away from completing her final year in her Medical Graduate program. She was far from a child and was waiting for the day when people stopped treating her like one. She pulled the front of her robe closed as she walked into the dining room. Every morning Esta would bring in the morning paper for her father who would sit at the head of the long empty table and drink his coffee.

Daniel Naylor had died nearly a year ago from a heart attack. He had been a healthy man in his late forties and his death had been sudden and swift. Few people attended his funeral and even fewer missed him after his passing. Relatives were quick to pick up their share of the fortune and return to their lives. Cruel and intelligent, her father had made a large sum of money from his investments in the stocks even in the nation wide depression. Many believed he had men in high places that owed him a few favors but nothing anyone could prove. The tradition of paper and coffee had been passed down to her whenever she was home. There was no paper or coffee on the table for her that morning with Esta gone.

Ashley opened the door and Sebastian came charging through door screaming like a banshee. She jumped and nearly fell backwards as the door slammed shut. The black cat hurried under the couch as if the ghost of Old Yeller were chasing after him.

"Stupid cat..." Ashley pulled the door open again and stepped into the warm spring air. It must have been later in the morning than she realized. She was used to the night shifts and falling asleep at the break of dawn and the late morning had never existed to her. The paper was laying in the middle of the stone walkway leading up to the house. The streets seemed to be more empty than usual. She expected to see children waiting for their school buses to arrive or wives tiding up the gardens and pools. But there was no one outside aside from a couple walking down the sidewalk.

"Oh what the..." Ashley bent down to pick up the newspaper and spotted what had scared the cat. One of the miniature lamps that lined the walkway had tipped over, the post being the only thing still in the ground, the lamp shade cracked on the cement with shards of glass scattered everywhere.

**String of Murders: Gang or Coincidence?**

_A string of violent murders spread across the county late last night. Corpses littered back allies of the main city as dozens of missing persons were simultaneously filed between 11 PM late Monday night and 6 AM early Tuesday morning. Bodies found across the city all report to have some kind of bite wound or scratch that is consistent with humans but the possibility of animals being the cause have not been ruled out. The Athens City Police Department has refused to comment at this time but assures the public that there is a full scale investigation underway._

**Con't Page A6.**

Ashley stared at the large picture centered on the front page of the Athens Banner-Herald Newspaper. It was a black and white photo of a police car parked outside of a dark alleyway in what seemed like the early hours of the morning. Two police officers were talking to the Coroner over a body covered in a sheet. A dark spot below the head shaped lump indicated an injury on the shoulder region. The large stain indicated a lot of blood had poured from the wound, a possible severing of the Carotid Artery.

Scraping against the cement alerted her to the presence of another and she looked up from the newspaper. How long had she been standing in her driveway reading? The mail man slowly walked up the walkway. It was far too early for the mail to be delivered and all of the nearby houses had their papers sitting on the porches.

"Already have my paper, thanks." Ashley raised her paper in his direction and nearly dropped it when she finally looked at his face. His jaw and the front of his shirt was covered in blood and her eyes were light blue and incredibly blood shot. He shuffled slowly forward in a steady pace, barely bending his knees. "Sir, are you alright? Do you need me to call you an ambulance?" He didn't reply and continued to walk forward in the slow, staged pace. "Sir, I'm a doctor, maybe I can help you." He was less than 5 yards away when he suddenly growled and lunged at her. Ashley dropped the newspaper in shock and grabbed the sides of the mans chest. Her elbows locked and kept him at arms length as he snapped at her with his red tinted teeth. His hands clenched her biceps tightly and she could feel his nails dig into her skin under her robe.

"Get off me!" With all of her strength she pushed into his chest and he stumbled backwards, losing his grip on her arms. Time seemed to slow down as the man slowly fell backwards. A sharp piercing sound filled the air as he landed on the exposed spike of the walk way lamp and the spike poked through his chest. Ashley covered her mouth as the consequences of her actions hit her like a brick. The spike had impaled the left side of his upper chest, the exact position of his heart. She had just killed a man. Her natural reaction was to kneel by him and check for a pulse, to shake him and ask him if he was alright. But she knew otherwise, she knew that he was dead and that she was the cause of it. She needed to keep her hands off of him and not move the body or the surrounding crime scene. She needed to call the police, hours of questions, days of investigations and weeks of court hearings. Ashley watched as the blood spilled from the body onto the cement and over the newspaper.

"This blood is black... but that's impossible. Even if the blood from the wound was only spilling blood from the ventricles it still wouldn't be this dark. This blood hasn't seen oxygen for several hours..." Ashley looked around quickly and grabbed a stick from the lawn and turned the mans arm over; the backside of his arm was covered in what looked like a red rash. "Blood Lividity... This man appears to have been dead for 8 to 12 hours." She had never heard or read about the blood pooling the entirety of the body while still being alive. This was impossible or at the very least a scientific anomaly. The man suddenly twitched and grabbed onto the stick. Ashley screamed out of shock and backed away from the man she had assumed was dead. He seemed to be stuck on the spike sticking out of his chest and couldn't do anything but reach out towards her and snap his teeth.

"No... you're dead... how are you still moving!" Ashley ran back into the house and slammed the door behind her.


	2. Silence

**Chapter Two: Silence**

It took a while for the truth of the outbreak to be known throughout the world. Once the top government agencies started to figure out the real reasons behind the sudden uprising in cannibalistic murders everything started to quiet down oddly quickly but only for a short time. The government tried to keep everything under the rug while they attempted to solve the problem without alerting anyone to the situation. The big cities started to fall first. New York City, Las Vagas and Los Angeles were swarming with news reporters from all over the country. The government instructed everyone to head into the major cities immediately. Having large amounts of people in one place allowed the government to provide aid and protection to everyone at once.

They were not prepared. People were infected and were already inside the big cities. They were able to protect the citizens from the infected trying to get into the city but they were soon over run by the infected from within the city. Chaos erupted, news stations first attempted to censor outgoing broadcasts. The terrorist attacks during 9/11 are the first things that came to mind. Everyone was on the news story but they all said the same things while at the same time saying nothing at all. Home videos on the internet started to surface and there were too many in too short a time to be taken down in time. Millions of people all over the world watched as people recorded the infected attacking and killing people in the streets of these protected big cities from their balconies. Police were in lines gunning down rioting civilians, people were breaking into stores and looting and prison breaks were at an all time high. It was almost as if the entire world had come an end.

Loud static filled the room and Ashley nearly jumped out of her skin. She had been writing in front of her bedroom television that had been tuned into a local news station. Atlanta was still deemed a safe area and there were reports of a refugee center that was taking in any survivors. All of the large news stations with headquarters in the larger U.S. cities had already gone black. She quickly turned it off and looked around the room slowly. She had spent most of her time in the upstairs portion of the house, making as little noise as possible. There were a few infected people wandering the streets but so far none had tried coming anywhere near the house to her knowledge. From her third floor balcony she was able to able watch them from a distance.

They seemed to wander around aimlessly and stick to around the place where they died. She recognized some of them as neighbors she had been introduced to at social gatherings her father held when she was younger. They didn't seem to go to far from where they had been attacked, the farthest they seemed to get was outside of their homes. She had stood on her balcony for what seemed like hours without being seen. They seemed to be attracted by sound only but she wasn't about to go walking out in the middle of the street to test the theory. She could stay in the house for several months if she needed too. There was enough food and water to last her for a very long time as long as she didn't have anyone else to feed and the generators in the basement were made to last. However, it was not a long term plan. She had watched a group break into one of the nearby houses just the day before. It was only a matter of time before they tried to make their way into her own home.

Ashley shut the laptop she had been writing on and checked her diamond cuff watch she had been given for her fifteenth birthday, 8:19 a.m. She hadn't gotten much sleep the last few days and her natural sleep cycle was all out of synch. She rubbed her eyes slowly and made her way to the bathroom. She was going to have a long day ahead of her. She pulled out a pad of paper from her desk on the way to her bathroom and began to write down a list of things she was going to have to get from the house if she was heading into Atlanta. The last thing she remembered hearing on the news before she had begun writing in the middle of the night was a refugee center being set up and encouraging everyone to come into the city.

Atlanta had started its broadcasts long after the countries larger cities had already been taken over by people who were infected. They ensured that they were medically checking all those who entered the refugee center and that no one that was infected was being allowed inside to ensure the safety of all incoming citizens. They would not make the same mistakes that the other cities had made.

Grab Ice Packs and food carriers from the kitchen, take some food from the basement freezers

Pack clothes and personal valuables

Get the guns and ammo from the gun cabinet

Blankets and pillows from the bedroom

Go through the cabinets and pick out non-perishables

Batteries, lighters, and water

Syphon gas from the basement generators

Camson whined as he trotted into the room. Both of her dogs; Camson her husky and Samba her Corgi puppy has been trapped inside of the house for the past week. They had always been outdoor dogs with the large backyard being their play ground their entire lives it was strange for them to trapped inside of the house. At first they seemed to just assumed it was just Ashley forgetting to let them out. She was only around for a few weeks every six months and they were not used to her being the only person in the house. When she started scolding them for whining they began to understand that they were not allowed to go outside. After a few days they had started noticing that something was wrong and they stayed upstairs.

"No Camson. I can;t let you outside." Camson bowed his head and walked over towards the corner and squatted and Ashley screamed. "Alright alright!" He trotted downstairs and Ashley quickly followed him to the sliding glass door. She opened the door slowly and he darted outside to find a quiet corner to take care of his business. Ashley looked around quickly, the brown fence surrounding the property and everything seemed to be extremely quiet. If she didn;t know any better she might have forgotten for a moment that the world seemed to be going to hell. Ashley shut the sliding glass door and returned upstairs. If she was going to a refugee center then she was going to be around lower and middle class people and there could be thousands of [people all in one place. It could be days before she had another shower and it might not even be a warm one. If she was going to be cramped into a cage with a hundred other people she was at least going to get as clean as possible before doing so. She would have to remember to withdraw cash from the ATM before leaving the city. Paying off a lonely soldier for a hot shower couldn;t be too difficult.

She shut the lights off and closed and locked the doors. Ever since she was a little girl she had taken it upon herself to lock the door while showering. Wet and naked made it extremely difficult to defend yourself against an assailant. Drunken bodies slamming against the door and slurred shouting filled her ears as she removed her clothing and turned on the hot water. The entire world was dead to her the moment she shut the blurred glass door.

"Stupid bitch." A small blonde was knocked into a china cabinet, one of the glass door cracked and the other opened and deposited some of it's content onto the young girls head. Priceless china crashed around her, cutting into her back and bruising her shoulders. A towering suit marched towards the door on the opposite side of the room and slammed it shut. The wind from the slamming door blew a single paper off of the nearby table. A math test with a large blue B at the top floated softly to the ground with her tears. Ashley pushed the door open as the water ran cold and she quickly wrapped a towel around herself and wiped the steam off the mirror. She wrapped her long white blonde hair into another towel and wiped the water off the scars on her shoulders. A loud cry made her jump out of her skin as she was brought back into the world of the living. She dropped the towel onto the ground as she ran towards the door. As her feet hit the tiles the water still dripping off of her from her shower caused her to fall, her forehead hit the edge of the door handle and she crashed to the floor and the world faded to black.

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Follow me at my Tumblr, I add pictures of concept ideas I have here in the story as well as updates to other projects. The watch in this chapter is featured there! - .com


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